What gets me, I mean, what really gets me, is the arrogance.
I had trouble with my enrolment for Semester One this year, enough to cause me to lose sleep and have homicidal thoughts about the various administrative staff with whom I came into contact in the process. The story goes that due to illness combined with some distressing family circumstances I had to withdraw from my papers in the second semester last year, and the university granted me fee exemption and automatic re-enrolment due to the unforeseen and exceptional nature of the situation. I went to StudyLink and told them what was going on, and provided the documentation they asked for, which included letters between my doctor, a counsellor on campus, the university and myself. The agreed course of action was that I would take a break and get better, enrol in a Summer School paper to keep my hand in, and continue with full time study as of the first semester this year.
So I enrolled for Summer School, having sorted out most of what I needed to sort out to get myself well. I started going for regular doctor’s and counselling appointments (by the way, the Student Counselling services here are really good – I recommend it if you find yourself floundering or stressed out). I sat my ass down and got reading, I was disciplined and diligent, I really applied myself and got the work done, handed in my assignments. It was all good.
Then I find out – at the end of the semester no less – that my access to Library services has been cut off, a bugger if you have no internet access at home. I go to Registry to ask what’s up, and I am informed ( in what I can only describe as a curt manner) that because my Summer School fees hadn’t been paid my results for my work over summer would be withheld, and that my enrolment for the First Semester wasn’t going to be processed.
I thought this had been cleared up months ago. Luckily the Summer School paper I had chosen was entirely internally assessed so I didn’t have to worry about not being able to sit an exam, but I’m pretty pissed at this point because I had made sure I’d gone and done all the paperwork before I even started Summer School, and had received assurances that I had the green light. So I ring StudyLink and ask what the Capital F is going on, and am told that the problem is because they had thought my withdrawing from Semester Two the previous semester meant I was done with university study.
I then had to run around getting the various correspondences to provide to StudyLink again because they claim to have no record of them, and then talk to the university explaining the situation. The university then rings StudyLink for verification, StudyLink acknowledges the fault and says they’ll fix it up, and I’m promised that it should all be cleared up in three working days.
I was pretty stressed by this point, I was having what I think are quite justifiable fears (given the lack of communication) that I would not be enrolled in time and that my allowance would be cut off unexpectedly while studying, and so on my next counselling appointment I told the sordid tale and my counsellor went off to make a phone call, I guess to see what the story actually was and come back with assurances that would put my mind at rest.
Well he came back, but the news wasn’t good. Even after the university contacting StudyLink directly to see why the Student Loan payment for my Summer School fees hadn’t gone through, even after StudyLink had acknowledged they’d fucked up and promised to rectify the situation, nothing further had been done. I was still in limbo. But after a bit of further harassment by my counsellor and the university, the resolutions were actioned and it all went into processing, which I was told would take about three days or a week. Again.
The part that really, REALLY gets to me is the aforementioned arrogance. Everyone I spoke to in this administrative process -- from both the university and StudyLink -- treated me like I was causing them hassles they didn’t need, like I was just a complication, like it was my fault that things hadn’t gone smoothly, when the truth of the matter is that it was poor communication between the two organisations and staff at StudyLink failing to follow through on procedures that was really to blame. The admin staff at both just go with the assumption that the student is in the wrong, and it’s both insulting and unfair. I went through all the hassle of consulting with the university and StudyLink when I made the decision to withdraw last year, I provided all the required documentation and got their advice and information about what I could expect, and yet it would have gone more smoothly and caused me less anxiety in an already trying situation if I had simply failed the papers for which I was enrolled, given my good academic record. I should point out that I’m not alone in my anger and frustration, it seems a number of my friends have experienced similar attitudes from staff and had similar complications, even without the medical dramas.
Why all this confusion? Why is documentation going missing, why are StudyLink decisions being suddenly reversed, why aren’t agreed resolutions being followed through? I attribute it to what I see as two serious failings in the way StudyLink operates. The first is that students are largely excluded from the actual decision making process. When calls were going back and forth between the university and StudyLink, though I was physically in the room I was shut out of the conversation, it was all jargon and acronyms, with no explanation offered to me of what any of it meant, in fact no questions or comments directed to me at all. It was bloody confusing, is what it was, and then I was pretty much shunted from the office without any clarification. I had to actually go and make further enquiries at reception just to find out what the hell had just happened.
The second problem that I see is that StudyLink doesn’t actually assign case-managers, and so you end up talking to several different people, none of whom consult with each other or go higher up the chain when they’re not sure of what to do in a particular situation. Person A says the appropriate action is such and such, and then Person B, not knowing why person A did that, simply says ‘Oh well, that wasn’t the correct action to take, we’ll have to change it,’ and so on. Decisions are overturned because the people making the initial decision aren’t familiar with the case history or sure what to do and so they guess. A few minutes consultation or even rescheduling the appointment with the client to sort out exactly what the current standing of their application is would be adequate, and having particular staff assigned to particular cases would make this a lot easier. It would certainly mean friendlier service.
DannyR
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